around and around
by Kairaita
Summary: AlbatRossRuki - "I wish for your happiness and nothing more." /Happy birthday, Ruki! 8/27.


_~around and around~_

_She placed the hat on her head, secured the two packages, took a deep breath, and opened the gate._

* * *

"Ros! What time is it right now!?"

"We have three minutes until class starts."

"Waah! And what are you eating back there!?"

"Your lunch, of course."

"_What!?_"

"Ah, Prez, please keep your eyes on the road. There's a person up ahead."

"A pers-AUUUGH! LOOK OUT!"

The front wheel of the bicycle wobbled dangerously as Alba frantically turned the handle, attempting to avoid the small figure in their path. The bicycle abruptly swerved a sharp left, and Alba yelped when he and the bicycle crashed straight into the brick wall and trashcan there while Ros, having hopped off just before impact, landed lightly on his feet with Alba's lunchbox in his hands. He turned nonchalantly away from the catastrophe and instead focused his attention on the little girl nearby who was blinking bemusedly at the scene.

"You alright?" Ros asked, taking a few steps and kneeling next to her. His eyes traveled up to her head, where a large black hat with small wings was sitting upon long, fluffy pink hair. _What a weird hat_. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"N-No, not at all!" she stammered, looking over his shoulder. "But… what about the person over there…?"

"He'll be fine," Ros answered dismissively. "Don't be bothered."

"Huh…"

Standing up, Ros walked back over to the entanglement of Alba, the bike, and the trashcan, prodding the other boy with his foot. "Oi, Prez, you alive? Get up already, this is no place to sleep."

"Ow, ow, ow," a voice moaned, and Alba finally stirred. Grimacing with disgust at the mess he found himself in, Alba pulled a banana peel off of his head and bolted upright. "Ros! Is that kid hurt!?"

"Nope, she's just fine."

"And you?"

"I'm the one standing, aren't I? Come on, here." Pulling Alba to his feet, Ros immediately began patting and brushing off dirt and debris from the other boy's white uniform shirt with much more force than necessary. "Goodness, how often do you wash your clothes, Prez? If you go around like this, everyone will start calling you the trash mountain."

"Ow! Ow! Stop it! You're hitting me on purpose!"

"Blood is coming out of your nose, by the way."

"Oh. …That was definitely you!"

"Yes, yes, here."

"Ah, thank you…"

Stuffing the tissue that Ros offered him up his nose, Alba glanced over at the pink-haired girl watching the two of them with wide eyes. "Excuse me!" he called, making his way over to her. The girl blinked and looked up at him curiously. "I'm really sorry about almost hitting you just now," Alba laughed nervously. "You're okay, right? For real?"

She shook her head, the black feathery wings on her hat flapping back and forth. "I really am okay, thank you."

"I told you to keep your eyes on the road, didn't I?" Ros sighed, walking up behind Alba. "No matter how you look at it, it's your fault. If you didn't oversleep, you wouldn't have had to bike so fast, and if you had been properly watching where you were going, you wouldn't have crashed—"

"I overslept because _you_ took my alarm clock with you last night after you left! And I wasn't watching because _you_ suddenly said you were eating my lunch!"

"It was delicious."

"Youuu… Oh forget it." Alba shook his head in exasperation and pressed another tissue to his cheek, wincing as it touched the scraped skin. Looking back at the girl and spotting her worried face, Alba laughed again and gave a brilliant smile. "Sorry you had to see that. But I'm really glad you aren't hurt!"

_Ah._

A sharp intake of breath, a sudden stinging sensation at the corners of her eyes as the face overlapped with another. Lowering her head so that the brim of her hat shadowed her expression, she smiled slightly.

_They haven't changed a bit._

"But what are you doing out here by yourself?" Alba asked, tilting his head to the side quizzically. "Don't you have school?"

"Huh? Um… Um… T-Today's a… day off?" the girl stuttered, wringing her sleeve-covered hands. Silently, Ros raised an eyebrow.

"What, really!?" Alba exclaimed enviously. "Elementary school students sure are lucky…"

"But, um, actually," the girl continued. "The reason I'm out here is… popcorn."

"…"

"…Popcorn?" Alba looked the picture of utter confusion.

"Yes…" the girl nodded. "I have a little sister back home, and the two of us love eating popcorn. But we ran out today, so I wanted to go out and buy some at the closest grocery store. I thought I would be okay by myself, but I ended up getting a little confused about the way there. So now…" Her cheeks reddened slightly with embarrassment, and even the wings on her hat seemed to droop to match her mood.

"Mm, I see…" Alba muttered, putting a hand to his chin in contemplation.

Ros chose that moment to speak up, his hands shoved in his pockets. "Looks like we have a case of a lost child on our hands, huh?"

"I'm not lost!" she huffed. "I just got the place mixed up!"

"Ah, you're right. Sorry," Ros replied amicably, amusement flickering in his eyes. He glanced to Alba and caught sight of the brown-haired boy's expression. _Oh, that look again…_

"Well, that settles it!" Slamming his fist into the palm of his right hand, Alba beamed. "We'll give you a hand!"

"Eh!?" The girl's head shot up in surprise. "You don't have to—"

"You're an unexpectedly good person, huh, Prez?" Ros remarked, ignoring Alba's indignant protest. "Even though the reason you and your bicycle are bent out of shape is right here, you're late for class as it is, and you could end up failing the next test too, you're still willing to help out?"

"H-Hey, you don't have to say all of that out loud!" Alba motioned frantically to the girl, who seemed appropriately dejected. "I-I'll just have you tutor me again… please," he added, at the icy look in Ros's eyes.

"Besides," Alba continued, straightening his back suddenly. "After hearing a reason like that, I can't just say 'Oh, is that so', and not want to help out, right?" He looked to Ros, determination blazing visibly in his eyes and that sincere, proud smile that always seemed to shine brighter than the sun.

She stared silently up at the boy who towered over her, an unreadable expression mingled with traces of awe on her face.

Before her, Ros let out a sigh of mixed resignation and amusement, a matching smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "It can't be helped, can it?" he said loudly, throwing his arm around Alba's shoulders. "I guess I'll just have to come along, Prez!"

"Huh!?" Stumbling slightly in surprise, Alba waved his hand back and forth. "It's fine, you don't have to! Just go to class ahead of me. …And maybe you can explain to the teacher…"

"What are you saying?" A look of utter contempt and disgust was thrown in Alba's direction, much to his sudden shock. "Who knows what you'll try to do if I just let you 'walk' with a little girl somewhere? And are you letting me go ahead so that I'm the only one who'll be scolded by the teacher?"

"Why did you stress the word 'walk'!? What kind of person do you think I am!? And that's not what I'm trying to do at all!"

"Sure, sure, now hurry up and go rescue your poor bicycle from that disaster. It looks like it's on the verge of dying."

"Uwah!"

Ros and the girl watched as Alba scrambled over to his bicycle in a flurry of panic and lifted it from the pile of garbage, standing it up and dusting it off all over.

"Is he…"

"Hm?" Ros looked down at the girl, who was still staring after Alba. In the distance, they could hear him fussing over the scratches and the dents.

"Is he always like that?" the girl asked quietly, and Ros detected the slightest hint of wistfulness in her voice.

"…Yeah, he is," Ros said at last, looking away. "No matter what kind of person, or how close he is to them, he's… always…"

"C-Crap, the front basket is bent!"

* * *

The plastic bag rustled noisily with the popcorn packages inside as the girl bowed her head, the wings on her hat drooping forward with the motion. "Alba-san, Ros-san, thank you very much! You've done a lot for me!"

"It's fine, it's fine!" Alba laughed sheepishly. "It's the least we could do for you after what almost happened…"

"It's good that you bought what you needed, right?" Ros added.

"Yes!" The girl beamed, smiling cheerfully. "Mama and papa should be happy to see this!"

"But are you sure you don't need us to send you home too?" Alba asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Will you be okay?"

She nodded confidently. "I can get back right away."

"Persistent men aren't popular, you know."

"That's got nothing to do with it!"

"Ah, sorry Prez, you're not popular in the first place, are you? Pueh, pueh~"

"S-Stop, that's still got nothing to do with it!"

"Hehehe." They both turned to see the girl giggling softly, as if laughing to herself at some secret joke. "Well then, I should be getting home soon. My parents might get worried if I don't hurry back."

"Oh, yeah. Take care getting home," Alba said brightly, giving a slight wave.

Ros offered his more succinct farewell. "Later." With that, he turned around and began walking away, but paused to address Alba over his shoulder. "Ah, Prez. I'll be coming over this afternoon to go over some of that classwork with you."

"Eh— Really!? Well then, Ruki," Alba called. "We'll be going too."

"Okay!" A wide smile stretched across her face from ear to ear. "I only spent a short time with you two, but I had a lot of fun."

Alba smiled back. "…Same here."

"I'll get the bicycle."

"Ah, Ros, wait for me…" Alba prepared to turn away, wincing at the creaking sounds from his bicycle, but stopped as something tugged at his shirt.

"Alba-san, here. Take these." Ruki held out two neatly wrapped packages sitting on her sleeves.

"What?" Blinking, Alba picked the packages up, turning them over in his hands. The larger one, despite its size, was surprisingly light, while something inside the smaller package made a rattling metallic sound. "Is it okay to give me these? When did you even buy them?"

"They're for you two! The smaller one is for you, and the bigger one is for Ros-san," Ruki continued. "Please give it to him later, with my regards."

"Whoa… Thanks, Ruki!" Cradling the packages carefully, Alba glanced over his shoulder at where Ros's back was beginning to recede into the distance. "I think…" he began, looking amused, "if you gave it to him directly, he probably wouldn't even know what to say, haha. Sorry about him just leaving like that, by the way," Alba added. "He's just bad at this kind of stuff."

"…As I thought."

"Hm?"

"Alba-san." Ruki looked up with the biggest smile he had seen yet; a warm, gentle smile that tugged at something in the farthest reaches of Alba's mind. "You and Ros-san really are close, aren't you?"

Alba stared. "Huh?"

"Come on, come on, Ros-san is already leaving, so you should be too!" Turning him around with more strength than her small body appeared to have, Ruki began pushing Alba in the other direction playfully.

"W-Wait a moment, Ruki! What did you mean just now—"

"Nothing at all! Now hurry up!"

"H-Hold on—"

"See you, Alba-san."

All of a sudden, the force of her push vanished and Alba fell forward, landing on his knees. "Uwah, Ru—…ki?" He turned around, and his eyes widened.

"She's… gone?"

* * *

"Wooow, talk about going from the best day to the worst, huh?"

The setting sun painted their surroundings in various shades of gold, orange, and red as Alba pedaled his bicycle furiously, growing increasingly irritated by Ros slapping his back behind him. On their right, even the sounds of a slowly flowing river seemed to be laughing at him.

"We ended up having to carry that sick old lady who suddenly collapsed in front of us," Ros continued much too cheerfully, "and then there was that other sick kid too. And then the police saw us carrying those two and got suspicious, so we could only run. And then the school questioned us for a long time, and in the blink of an eye, it's suddenly evening!"

"…"

"It's like you're the main protagonist of a gag manga, isn't it, Prez!?"

"…Well, _sorry_ about that. Geez," Alba grumbled. "Anyway, why did you stick with me the whole time? You could've gone straight to class."

"And miss out on toying with something so interesting?"

"I'm not a toy!"

"Haha."

"Seriously…" Alba concentrated on pedaling even harder, but Ros had fallen strangely silent.

They continued on the path for a long while, the only sound being the squeaking of the bicycle wheels, before Ros spoke up again.

"But you know," he said softly, tugging at the back of Alba's shirt. "You were pretty cool today, Prez. Kind of like a hero."

The bicycle jerked suddenly.

"…Prez?"

Alba's head was lowered even as he continued to pedal, and Ros spotted the reddened tips of his ears poking out from under fluffy brown hair. "…Can you say that again?" Alba said, seemingly with great effort through gritted teeth.

"Huh? Don't want to."

"…Ugh, should've expected that." A thought struck Alba. "But why did you say 'like a hero'? Not just 'heroic'?"

"No reason in particular," Ros shrugged, looking away. "I just don't think your face is very heroic, that's all."

"My _face_!?" Feeling slightly dejected, Alba fumed for a moment before another thought struck him. "Well then, Ros… You'd be the hero's partner or something, right? Like a soldier."

"Hah?" Leaning over Alba's back indignantly and ignoring how the bicycle wobbled, Ros voiced his displeasure. "Why do I have to be something like that? Something more like a mage would be cooler."

"But that doesn't really suit you, does it? And anyway, stop doing that, it's dangerous! The bike's shaking!"

Night had nearly fallen by the time Alba's house came into view, at which point Ros spoke again. "Now that I think about it, was that girl from this morning talking to you about something?"

"Um…" Alba racked his brain. "Something about being close or something…"

"Being close? You!? With a girl as young as that!?"

"No! It wasn't about that at all!" They dismounted the bicycle, and Alba locked it by a fence before unlocking his front door, continuing as they slipped into the house. "Oh yeah, here." He rummaged around his backpack before pulling out the two wrapped packages Ruki had given him. "She gave us these. This one's yours," he said, tossing the larger package to Ros.

"It's light," Ros muttered, catching it easily. "What is it?"

"I dunno, she just said it was for us, for helping her out. Not sure where she got them from either…"

"Huh."

They opened the packages at the same time, paper crackling and rustling as they tore the wrapping off. Alba blinked; his package contained a small box. He opened the box and turned it upside down, something red and shiny landing on his hand, and held the object up to eye-level. "What… is this?"

It appeared to be a pendant of sorts, a metallic piece that resembled a heart pressed onto a triangle hanging from a thin chain. The triangle and a jewel in the center were a bright orange-red, and glinted in the light. A small chain link dangled from the thinner chain as well, with "No. 45" engraved on it. A compulsion to put it on seized Alba, and he slipped it over his head. The chain landed around his neck with a small clatter, and the pendant came to a rest over his heart. "This looks valuable…" he muttered. "I wonder if it's really okay to have this." Looking to his left, Alba spotted Ros sitting still with the opened package in his hands. "What's in yours?"

Abruptly, Ros stood up. Alba watched in fascination as his friend gripped one end of a dark red piece of fabric and pulled, stretching it out to its full length.

"It's a red, kind of ragged scarf," Ros murmured, looking at it with a mixture of mild confusion and an unreadable expression.

"Ragged?" Having glimpsed Ros's gift, Alba turned back to his own, searching for a note or anything he had overlooked in his package, and missed the way Ros stared at the scarf for a long moment.

_Fwoosh._

"'Hero'. Take a look at this."

"Huh?" Alba's head swiveled back, the pendant jingling with his movement. "…'Hero'?"

The scarf was now wrapped securely around Ros's neck, and he smiled wryly at Alba, his gaze catching the mark hanging from Alba's neck, glittering slightly. "I'm the 'soldier', Ros."

"…Just kidding."

* * *

Long pink hair fluttered as she jumped out of the black hole floating in midair. She waved a sleeve-covered hand as her feet touched the ground, and the gate closed immediately. With a sigh of relief, she lifted the cap from her head.

And Ruki smiled, hanging up the black cap with two holes in the top on a nearby hook. The wings on her head waved back and forth in pleasure of being freed from their confines.

"It was nice to see you, Alba-san, Ros-san."

* * *

_The soldier and the hero aren't here anymore. Not in a world where they aren't needed._

_But even so, the two of them will meet, again and again, any number of times. I knew they would. I believed it._

_And they'll continue walking together, on a different journey each time…_

_So for as long as I live, I'll always keep watch over them._

_Because those two always have been… and always will be…_

…_My heroes._


End file.
